All Wishes Come True

[Drunk Monk]

All Wishes Come True

This has been a major blockbuster in China, dethroning Stephen Chow's long awaited sequel Kung Fu Soccer. It's from the same studio that did Kung Fu Panda 3 and Abominable. The Chinese title is 8 Immortals, and this is a comedic take on their creation tale. 

I love the 8 Immortals tales and this is a savage rewrite against canon, but it was still enjoyable for me. It's lavish animation - would've been grand on the big screen (I'm posting it here because I got a screener and those count extra in my book). It's a convoluted story where the characters aren't who they seem. Perceived betrayals of friendship are actually acts of extreme sacrifice, and everything links together at the end with big flashback reveals. It was so complicated that I'm tempted to watch it again to sort it all out. 

I got invited to interview the writer/director Mu Zhengyang and Pearl Studio CEO Catherine Ying tomorrow (I know, Labor Day - and I've been working all feckn weekend. I was planning to go to that free Deadhead concert in GGP tomorrow and have lunch with a tai chi hawt master who's in town but I couldn't resist this interview). Will this play well in the US? Not likely. It's too deeply immersed in Chinese xianxia, a genre that needs a lot of cultural knowledge to follow. Characters like Yang Jian and Sun Wukong play heavily in it, and their powers are taken for granted for audiences who know xianxia but it doesn't bother to explain them. It'll probably come off like a big visual mess plot wise to the uninitiated. But to those who know, there's some clever plays on the old motifs. It mostly focuses on my fav immortal, Lu Dongbin (the swordsman) and Zhongli Quan, who is portrayed as quite the rogue (actually the 8 immortals are all kinda rogue, sometimes referred to as the 8 drunken immortals). I liked how the lone female He Xiangu was depicted. A fun film and another triumph for Chinese animation that will not get the global attention it deserves. 

Not D00M recommend unless you know the 8 Immortals legends.

[Drunk Monk]

I’m in the queue for the interview. It’s in a ‘press room’ which is upstairs adjacent to the projection booth.